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Protection of Polish Regions Water Source

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The Polish city of Imielin is located in southern Poland beside the  Dziećkowice Reservoir, a beautiful man-made lake used by locals and tourists for a broad range of recreational activities, including sailing competitions, fishing, swimming and sunbathing on sandy beaches.

Dziećkowice Reservoir also supplies drinking water to Imielin and communities across the Silesia region. It is therefore vital that Imielin was served by an effective and reliable sewerage system offering the highest level of environmental protection.

The city also sits in a region that has been subject to extensive coal mining over many years, causing damage to the terrain, including subsidence. Between 2006-2019, Imielin implemented a comprehensive vacuum sewage system as part of a multi-phase construction process. A total of 60 km of vacuum lines were built and more than 1,000 vacuum valves installed. Flovac Polska was an integral partner in the project, supplying vacuum valves, vacuum station equipment and a propriety cable monitoring system.

“Operating any sewage system involves challenges, but the task is easier when you are working with a reliable partner like Flovac Polska sp. z.o.o. We know we can always count on the company’s help in terms of design, implementation and operation”.

Marek Jędrysik, President/CEO Miejska Spółka Komunalna

Why Flovac’s solution was chosen

Imielin is characterised by flat and mining-damaged terrain, as well as difficult ground-water conditions. Given these challenges, the city recognised that Flovac’s vacuum sewerage system offered a cost-effective solution, in part because it requires shallow trenches, which cuts construction costs and enables faster deployment.

Environmental protection was also a key factor because vacuum systems operate with negative pressure, ensuring no sewage can leak out (even in the event of a rupture). In addition, this means there are no overflows and rainfall cannot infiltrate

Finally, Flovac’s solution offered reliability and stability (with an inlet system designed to ensure air is always automatically entering the system), as well as easy monitoring and maintenance.

The monitoring of the vacuum system via a cable system (FMS) offers the client stable power and is a great alarm system for activations, pressure and potential failures. Flovac Polska has been a leading developer  in this type of monitoring and can save the client money through ease of operations and reduces risks to the community via fast alerts to the operators.

The results

Flovac’s technology has delivered outstanding reliability to the city and unrivalled protection to the Dziećkowice Reservoir. As a result, Imielin City Council remained fully committed to an investment and implementation process that continued over a 15-year period until completion in 2019.

Smaller scale expansions of the vacuum sewerage system will continue as the Imielin are continues to expand.

For a reprint of this article you can download it here 

Flovac’s vacuum sewerage system is not only suited to environmentally sensitive regions or challenging terrains. It offers tangible benefits to all manner of new and existing residential developments. For more information, please contact your local office.

Gratulacje Flovac Polska for a new Septic Tank Replacement Scheme

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Flovac Polska, the largest designer and supplier of vacuum sewerage systems in Poland has just completed providing a vacuum sewer system for the small rural town of Zakościele. The community is a ribbon development along the Pilica River.

The small town with about 150 houses is located approximately 60 km south east of  Łódź. Some of the houses are located alongside the river and above the road sloping down towards the river. Between the river and the main road, where most of the houses are located, flooding has become a regular occurrence. It has become a health issue with septic tanks overflowing when the flooding occurs.

At first a tender came out for  a gravity system with a number of pump stations located along the rivers edge. When our colleagues from Flovac Polska contacted the town and contractor (designer) about the benefits of a vacuum system in this location, they were very unsure as they had never heard of vacuum system.

After a whole of life costing analysis and discussions with the contractor about the capital costs it was clearly shown that the vacuum system would be a much cheaper option. More importantly a Flovac system was seen as a much better system to install in an area where flooding was a problem.

Read here about how the Flovac Valve can operate under water

Another major benefit of the system is that it is fully monitored, so all of the collection pits and pump station sends data to the central control system and the operators.

This includes a high level alarm and an alarm that warns of any possible infiltration occurring. All of the monitoring equipment is rated at IP68 so that it can operate under water.

This is shown here on a video taken of one of the Flovac valves operating under water with the MZA monitoring device attached. SEE HERE

Poland has become one of largest countries in the world using vacuum sewerage systems and Flovac Polska has designed and installed more than 60 systems, nearly all of which have been septic tank replacement schemes funded by the European Union.

Water Supply and Sewerage in the 21st Century

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The City of Marki in Poland, north east of Warsaw and Wodociag Marecki the Utility Company that maintains the water and sewerage systems in Marki City are quite unique.

There is a very close relationship between the utility, the City and Warsaw University of Technology. Over the last ten years they have done a number of concepts, designs and installations using a number of different technologies for specific sight conditions throughout their area. These have included vacuum sewers, gravity sewers, pressure systems and even domestic on-site treatment plants.

Prior to this initiative the City had relied on septic tanks so they wanted to ensure that they used the right technology for the right area and community. What has been tremendous about this effort is the city’s willingness to share their experiences with others around the country. Flovac applauds their efforts in this field and have been very happy to support them.

On a periodic basis seminars have been held to discuss their findings, the most recent of which was recently held in Zegrze near Warsaw.  The seminar was titled (Water Supply and Sewerage in the 21st century) and included representatives from a number of local authorities and utilities from the north east of Poland. Experts were invited to talk on different subjects.

On Vacuum Sewerage Systems the speakers were:

Prof. Dr hab. inż. (prof. PhD Eng) Zbigniew Heidrich – Politechnika Warszawska (Warsaw Univerity of Technology)

Dr inż. (PhD Eng) Marek Kalenik – Szkoła Główna Gospodarstwa Wiejskiego (Warsaw University of Life Science)

Dr inż.  (PhD Eng) Jacek Sobesto – Flovac Polska sp. z o.o.

Dr.inż. (PhD Eng) Grzegorz Stańko – Wodociąg Marecki sp. z o.o.

Dr Jacek Sobesto of Flovac Polska

One of the largest Flovac systems in Poland is based in the City of Marki and has over 800 Flovac valves connecting residents to the vacuum sewer. It has proved to be easy to maintain and well accepted by the community.

Vacuum Pump Station in Marki

Inside the Vacuum Pump Station in Marki

Flovac System handles Radioactive Waste at Hospital

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Flovac’s engineering group in Poland, working in conjunction with The Medical University in Bialystok have developed a unique solution that has broad applications for Hospitals around the world.

The problem that many hospitals face, particularly those focused on cancer wards is the radioactive wastewater that is held for long periods of time in storage tanks. The use of vacuum toilets in the cancer wards reduces the amount of water flushing to 1 litre per flush reducing the water usage and the space required for storage tanks.

VS and storage tanks

Another main problem that the Flovac engineers resolved was in how to get the radioactive waste from the cancer treatment rooms to to storage tanks located in the basement. An initial gravity design by the hospital proved difficult as not only were the treatment rooms spread out throughout the hospital there was also no room to fit the gravity pipes due to congested corridors already taken up with other pipework and power cables.

The Flovac system that was installed used small diameter PVC pipe with glued joints. The small slope that was required made it easy to avoid obstacles and helped get around difficult area’s. Small grey water collection sumps and vacuum toilets ensured that no digging through floors needed to be done. The vacuum pump station which generates the vacuum energy throughout the pipe network was housed in the basement right next to the storage tanks. This meant that no valuable space was taken up with sewage infrastructure. The Chancellor of the University was particularly happy with the speed of construction and the limited impact the installation had on the working of the hospital.

One of the most important elements that the Flovac system delivered was the security in knowing that no radioactive materials could leak out of the pipework anywhere else within the hospital. As the vacuum pipework is always under negative pressure if a break in the pipe occured air would be sucked into the pipe and no wastewater could exit. As more vacuum would be required at this point the operator would be immediately notified and repairs made.

rotator_4

A number of hospitals in Poland, working in conjunction with the University are planning to utilise this technology.

If you would like more information on this please contact [email protected]